Kindling the Moon (Arcadia Bell #1)(23)

“Who’s Foxglove?” I quickly asked before it got too awkward.

“Our dog—a black Lab.”

“Ah.” Not a cat. Big points.

“She’s outside, but don’t tell Jupe. Looking for her will keep him occupied for a few minutes and give your ears a chance to rest.”

He grinned and turned away, then starting walking out of the room. I guessed that meant that I was supposed to follow, so I did. We walked under a wide archway into a kitchen with gobs of white subway tile and stainless steel countertops. A long, curved island sat in the center, bordered with six stools. As he walked around the island, he motioned for me to sit.

“Whatever you’re cooking smells terrific,” I admitted.

It really did; my stomach was trying to eat itself.

“Thanks.”

I waited for him to tell me exactly what if was, but he didn’t.

“The food’s not dosed like your cigarettes, right?”

“Like you’ve never dosed someone.”

“How would you know?” If he’d been snooping, asking around about me, God only knew what he’d heard. A couple of my regulars at the bar suspected that I concocted medicinals; had they been gossiping?

He gave me a mysterious smile, then turned away and changed the subject. “I’ve found ten albino demons so far,” he said as a timer went off. He took the large stockpot off the range and turned his back to me to dump out the contents into a colander. The infamous potatoes. “When we get finished eating, I’ll let you look at them and you can tell me what you think.”

“That’s great news.”

“Hold off on getting too excited. I’ve only been through a handful of goetias.”

“Oh?”

“It could take me days to finish with what I’ve got. If we can’t find it, I might know someone we can call.”

“Anything you can do to help is much appreciated. I know this is probably taking up a lot of your time, and you’ve got a job and your son—”

“I don’t have a shoot scheduled right now. Don’t worry about it.”

Lon smashed the steaming potatoes in a large bowl as the sound of a slamming door echoed in the distance. Jupe’s voice carried from somewhere in the house. “Goddamn dog, where the hell are you hiding?”

“Jupiter!” Lon yelled crossly.

“Oops, sorry,” Jupe replied. His footsteps thundered across the wooden floor before he appeared in the kitchen.

“No swearing around company.”

He flopped onto the stool next to me and spread his long arms across the counter. “I said sorry, jeez. I’m sure she’s heard it before.”

“I have … in the car earlier, when I was trying to find your house.”

Jupe looked at me with a strange expression, then got it, and laughed, rearing back his head. “See. She cusses too.”

Lon threw me a scolding look. “Not helping,” he mumbled.

“Don’t let him fool you,” Jupe said, “he drops the F-bomb like a billion times a day, but he only pretends it’s wrong in front of other people. H-Y-P-O-C-R-I—” he began spelling.

“Goddammit, Jupe.”

“Language, Dad.”

I covered my mouth with my knuckles to muffle a laugh.

We ate at a small table in a nook off the kitchen— braised short ribs that melted on the tongue, in a thick, dark wine sauce; a simple salad; and the hand-smashed potatoes, which were doctored with a sinful amount of cream and butter. After a long, dry spell of living off microwave dinners and cold cereal, anything homemade would’ve tasted good, but his cooking skills were surprisingly refined. I had to force myself to eat everything slowly so that I didn’t appear desperate or greedy. Jupe had no such concerns and finished off two helpings with remarkable speed and gusto.

Throughout the meal, I was torn in two directions by two very different men. Jupe was bubbly and talkative, a fireball of innocent energy that contrasted with Lon and his understated way of thinking and speaking.

Strangely, though, I found a few subtle similarities between them as well. Jupe obviously considered himself a budding comedian and constantly tried to make me laugh— which he did, many times—but I also caught fleeting looks of amusement on Lon’s face, and they lapsed into several bouts of gunfire-fast witty repartee. Yet, underneath all his manic energy, Jupe had his father’s easy confidence, and occasionally made remarkably concise observations that caught me off-guard.

It was pleasant, being in a normal house with a normal family. My mind wandered to the last few years I’d spent at home with my own family, when I was a teenager. My mom was never much of a cook, and making the meal that Lon had just served would have been beyond her expertise. Besides, my parents were vegans, so meat was never part of our meals at home—though I’d regularly sneak hamburgers and meat loaf in the school cafeteria and tell my parents I’d eaten salad instead. But there was an Indian restaurant close to our house in Florida that made awesome samosas. We used to get take-out from them every Friday and would eat it outside on our back patio. Afterward, my father would point out constellations and tell me stories about the myths behind them. Even though he repeated many stories, I never got tired of hearing any of them; Friday was always my favorite day of the week.